Polarizing discussions about political and social issues are common in mass media. Annotations on the degree to which a sentence expresses an ideological perspective can be valuable for evaluating computer programs that can automatically identify strongly biased sentences, but such annotations remain scarce. We annotated the intensity of ideological perspectives expressed in 250 sentences by ag...

The European Parliament (EP) has been characterised as a ‘working parliament without public’ rather than ‘debating parliament’. However, this distinction was called into question when irregular migration became sensitive topic and national political parties polarised on policy. Thus, article explores whether one risk resulting from such characterisation – lack of public involvement is raised by...

The body scanning device, used at some airports to view through passenger's clothing to the surface of the skin, is considered to be a major improvement toward ensuring that weapons or explosives are not carried onto commercial aircraft, making airline travel safer, and the nation more secure. In the ten years since September 11, 2001, airport security has become increasingly invasive. Air pass...

Technological developments tend to move at a very different speed from their cultural assimilation. Hence it is not surprising that impressive technical wizardry should be used in culturally unimpressive ways. The real problem is one of imaginative maturity. Here I argue that Choueka's old question, " The tools are here; where are the results? " , similarly directs humanist scholars to pay atte...

Implicitly and explicitly, human rights have played a significant role in public health debates for decades. At the turn of the century, when health department officials in the United States were debating measures to control sexually transmitted diseases, it was argued that "the progress of preventive medicine has been a history of the conflict between the so-called rights of the individual and...

I A late count and a faulty ballot handicapped the SA elections this week, but the vox populi resounded anyway, with a 1285 ballots cast — a 50% turnout. The problem with the ballot was in the lack of clear instructions for Honor Council voting. The fact that one can vote for HC members only within one's own class was not made clear; hence, a clear majority violated the rule. Therefore, the Hon...